Nov 25, 2013

Business and Management Links

"... Heifetz trained as a psychiatrist, and he describes his view of effective leadership with an analogy from medicine. "When a patient comes to a surgeon, the surgeon's default setting is to say, 'You've got a problem? I'll take the problem off your shoulders and I'll deliver back to you a solution.' In psychiatry, when a person comes to you with a problem, it's not your job actually to solve their problem. It's your job to develop their capacity to solve their own problem."..."

"Being a kind leader does not mean that you don’t fire people. It doesn’t mean that you don’t make tough decisions that will impact the bottom line. And it doesn’t mean that you won’t work harder than those who are unkind. It simply means that you are focused as much on the delivery of your message as you are on the message itself. ... "

... The self-made super-rich (net worth = US$500 million or more) are hardly immune from the personal complications of these stresses. They may very well fear a crashing economy or a stroke as much as anyone else. However, in ethnological investigations of the self-made super-rich, there’s often a somewhat different underlying psychology in action. To understand this core motivation, let’s take a step back and consider a couple of the often more pronounced major concerns of the self-made super-rich.

Fear of losing their wealth. Their fortunes are very much a factor of their efforts. The self-made super-rich are well aware of what they sacrificed and what they did (some of which is likely disconcerting) to become so affluent. Coupled with the wealth creation high, there are times when the thought of losing their vast wealth is actually quite terrifying especially since it’s usually fairly difficult to reconstitute such personal fortunes.

Fear of losing power and influence. In the process of creating a momentous personal fortune, many of the self-made super-rich have created a network of successful and powerful individuals. Consequently, either directly or through these individuals, they’re able to exert substantial power and influence in the world. As with losing their wealth, when they lose this capability it is usually impossible to get it back. ...

... By becoming insignificant, the self-made super-rich are losing their self-identity that is often a product as well as function of their vast wealth. It’s that they are no longer important to the world at large, but they’re no longer important in their own heads.

For a long time, having the best supply chain was enough. This is how Walmart became the powerhouse retailer it is: by building the largest, broadest, most efficient system for moving products across the United States. Then along came advanced analytics, which allowed companies to determine what products to suggest next to the product you were already buying, or to provide add-ons that any specific buyer might want, such as free shipping or free bonus products. Amazon mastered this strategy.

Now those techniques have timed out, too. We already know that 3D printing and robotic manufacturing technology can overtake centralized production. But the difference here is that a single company might not emerge to capitalize on these technologies the way singular brands like Walmart and Amazon have in the past. Instead, we are now entering the primacy of design.

From a consumer perspective, this means more products to choose from at better prices, faster delivery, and with greater personalization. But from a retail perspective this is nothing short of revolutionary: the bottom is dropping out of the middle of retailers’ entire business—the part where they produce and provide customers with products. ...

... Retail consultancy WD Partners has published a report showing how traditional stores can still appeal to modern shoppers by updating their brick and mortar models rather than trying to chase Amazon online.

No American politician can go wrong singing the virtues of small businesses. But the much-revered cornerstone of economic growth is a broad category, encompassing everyone from the independent consultant to the coffee-shop owner to the start-up founder on the verge of explosive growth. And while our rhetoric may not distinguish between them, policymakers must in order to understand how to best support the needs of different kinds of small businesses. ...

I was one of the founders of our modern methods of both socially responsible and impact investing. In 1982, the Calvert Socially Responsible Mutual Funds, of which I was one of the founders, was the first family of such funds and today the Calvert Group has over $12 billion under management and is the largest family of such funds. In 1975, I was also one of the founders of the Institute for Community Economics, one of the first designers of impact investment funds (in those days we called it "community investment").

What distinguishes the three kinds of investments in the title of this paper from each other is the priority of each. Our priority each moment determines everything else we do. All secondary priorities honor and yield to the leadership of our highest priority. ...

Some investors are finding meaning by putting their money where their faith is.

Faith-based mutual funds typically screen out stocks of companies that violate the tenets of a given religion or religious denomination. A Muslim fund is likely to screen out companies related to pork production, for example, while a Catholic fund can avoid a maker of contraceptives.

"In almost every regular mutual fund, a [religious] client is going to get a share of companies that are involved in activities in which they'd rather not be involved," says Dan Hardt, a certified financial planner in Louisville, Ky., who specializes in Christian faith-based planning. Mr. Hardt says among his client base, abortion is "easily the No. 1 'egregious' activity in which they would like to avoid investing." ...

Denonminations also do screening with investment of their coporate funds. Here is a link the the Mission Responsibility Through Investment of the Presbyterian Mission Agency of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., the denomination to which I belong. This committee implements denominational policy on socially responsbile investing of the denominations's funds and works to persuade corporations to change practices. Some denonminations have similar approaches.

... In most cases workers equity stakes are fairly small. But the authors argue that this widespread, if shallow, citizen capitalism is the basis from which something much bolder can be built. They urge a 21st century version of George Washington's logic: government incentives designed to encourage firms to expand employee share ownership. Their proposals range from the small-bore (use the federal government to spread the word on employee share ownership) to a more ambitious restructuring of tax incentives (for instance, making all existing corporate tax breaks contingent on a firm having a profit-sharing or employee ownership scheme).

Are these proposals a good idea? Certaintly the logic that broadening capital participation is part of the answer to countering the squeeze on workers is an appealing one. But does it make sense for workers to build up capital stakes in the firms they work for? One worry has to be the concentration of risk. ...

... Rather than dole out new special incentives to promote a particular, and perhaps risky, route to broader share ownership, why not eliminate existing incentives that serve to encourage the concentration of capital? The carried-interest loophole, which allows private-equity partners to pay (lower) capital-gains tax rates on their income, would be an obvious place to start.

... The argument for the open-plan office is that it forces workers to talk to each other and triggers fruitful and surprising collaborations that wouldn’t have happened with everyone hunkered down inside their own four walls. A recent study that surveyed 40,000 American officer workers, however, found that those in open-plan arrangements were not only less happy with their workspace than those with private offices; those surveyed also judged that the ”benefits of enhanced ‘ease of interaction’ were smaller than the penalties of increased noise level and decreased privacy resulting from open-plan office configuration.” The authors write: “the open-plan proponents’ argument that open-plan improves morale and productivity appears to have no basis in the research literature.” ...

Why is ALDI so much cheaper than other supermarkets?

ALDI stores offer a narrow selection of 1400 high-volume products as opposed to the typical 40,000 or more by supermarket giants. Because they only offer products with high turnover, their overhead is lower. Perishable products like milk, meats and produce arrive 5-7 times per week, so there’s no need to rotate inventory for freshness.

No coupons or credit cards are accepted. Debit cards are accepted.

Customers “rent” a cart by depositing a quarter, and return it at the end of their trip which eliminates the need for ALDI associates to corral them.

- See more at: http://frugalbites.com/why-is-aldi-so-much-cheaper-than-other-supermarkets/#sthash.NwrDNeBG.dpuf

Why is ALDI so much cheaper than other supermarkets? - See more at: http://frugalbites.com/why-is-aldi-so-much-cheaper-than-other-supermarkets/#sthash.NwrDNeBG.dpuf

Why is ALDI so much cheaper than other supermarkets?

ALDI stores offer a narrow selection of 1400 high-volume products as opposed to the typical 40,000 or more by supermarket giants. Because they only offer products with high turnover, their overhead is lower. Perishable products like milk, meats and produce arrive 5-7 times per week, so there’s no need to rotate inventory for freshness.

No coupons or credit cards are accepted. Debit cards are accepted.

Customers “rent” a cart by depositing a quarter, and return it at the end of their trip which eliminates the need for ALDI associates to corral them.